Mountain Cog
Mountain bike podcast that will make you laugh and learn. Featuring a wide range of passionate guests. Available everywhere (Apple, Spotify etc).
Mountain Cog
111 - Bike Shop Secrets: Will My Parts Fit if I Swap Mountain Bike Frames?
Thinking about swapping your mountain bike frame but wondering if your existing components will transfer over? This comprehensive bike shop secrets episode dives deep into frame compatibility with industry expert Dane Higgins. Learn about critical measurements including rear hub spacing (boost vs. super boost), headset configurations, fork steerer tube length, and bottom bracket standards. The hosts cover everything from dropper post insertion depth and seat collar sizing to disc brake adapter requirements and chainline adjustments for different rear-end widths.
Whether you're considering a frame-only purchase from brands like Revel or Intense, or planning a complete build transfer, this episode provides essential guidance on what components are universal and what requires careful measurement. Discover insider tips on headset cup compatibility, shock eye-to-eye measurements, crank spindle widths, and the often-overlooked differences between threaded and press-fit bottom brackets. Perfect for DIY mountain bikers and anyone looking to understand the complexities of modern bike component standards before making their next frame purchase.
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Okay, I got a quick question.
Host:JoshAnderson:Go for it, man.
Host:DaneHiggins:That song's Jack Ritter.
Host:JoshAnderson:Uh Jack Ritter, yeah.
Host:DaneHiggins:Is that that's what the name is?
Host:JoshAnderson:Yeah, I randomly called it that. Yeah.
Host:DaneHiggins:So the guy from uh God's Company. Three's Company. Yeah. His name wasn't Jack Ritter.
Host:JoshAnderson:I think we might might have screwed it up, but that's what we attribute it to.
Host:DaneHiggins:That's what we thought it was. I think it's the real actor's part name and then the character's probably the last name or something.
Host:JoshAnderson:I think we s we've screwed it up, yeah.
Host:DaneHiggins:I don't know. I but I I don't know why, but when I heard the song, I'm like, I gotta know right now. We have to record this and tell people. I don't know why I had I felt the need to do that, but I did.
Host:JoshAnderson:I got a question for you as well.
Host:DaneHiggins:Okay.
Host:JoshAnderson:What is an e-biker's favorite fruit?
Host:DaneHiggins:Oh, oh god, I know this. No, I have no idea. It's it's it's a watt or melon. Oh god. You could do that as a triathlete. I I think that'd be better if you said what's a triathlete's favorite fruit. Right. Or even a road biker, right? Only because as long as I've been selling bikes, like triathletes are so focused on how many watts they're doing. Wait, say that again, triathlete. Triathletes. Triathlete. Triathlete. Okay, cool. Is I'm saying it wrong?
Host:JoshAnderson:No, you just it for some reason you had to like a weird. Did it flow? It just flowed. It's kind of kind of funny. I don't know. You said it a lot.
Host:DaneHiggins:All right, another question. Okay.
Host:JoshAnderson:Why did the e-biker get a promotion? Um because he was cheating? Because he always goes the extra mile. That's legit. I like that. I got a three for today. Oh shit. Final one. Okay. What's the difference between an e-biker and a regular mountain biker?
Host:DaneHiggins:Um 20 pounds.
Host:JoshAnderson:It's probably a better answer. No. One pedals and one pretends to pedal.
Host:DaneHiggins:Oh. That's brutal. So all right. You know what? So before we get started, because we're gonna we're gonna talk about bike shop stuff. Yeah, bike shop. I got a I got something to get off my chest. Don't take your shirt off, dude. For Christ's sakes. It's not hair. Um so the uh this is bugging me, and your your your jokes kind of reminded me like e-bikes and stuff, and we've been having a little bit of talk talks in the shop. We've been getting a ton of these scooters. E-scooters? E-scooters in the shop. And Disney like flats repaired. Yeah, some of them are solid tires and stuff. Oh, yeah. Some of them that sounds like a fun, you know, and then they they have a wire that goes to the rear, you know, and you gotta I I I I I don't know. One guy came in and he's like, I need this wire. Uh there is no support for those things out there. Like people are buying them left and right. Bike shops don't have the parts. We're not, you know, we don't have 12-inch solid tires or whatever they're running. It's uh it's something that I'm like wondering it's an issue. And then I will tell you, I probably shouldn't say this because somebody's gonna get me in trouble, but I ran over one of those people. You ran over one of those people? No, Dane, we shouldn't talk about this on the podcast. I know. So uh this guy was um a super nice guy, nothing happened. He was okay. Well, you didn't run him over, you bumped into him. Yeah, so uh uh uh what was happening is I was leaving uh a a business and entering a roadway. No, it's okay. I don't care. But what he did was so against the rules. Now when I when when I hit him, it was one mile an hour or less. Like it wasn't a big deal, it wasn't violent, he didn't get hurt, right? But um I was pulling out and I'm looking left because I'm turning right onto a roadway, and I had scanned already, you know, but it's a divided, so I don't really need to heavily look to my right because I'm not except for pedestrians. Yeah. And I uh I look to my right and then I look to the left, I see a car coming, I'm watching that car, and then I decide to pull out and I hear a just a yell, and this guy is in front of me now. And this guy was on the sidewalk on this thing, no helmet, doing like 25 miles an hour. And you know, of course I got out, made sure he was okay. I gave him a ride to his car. I he was very nice. He was more worried if his jeans got scuffed up. Uh huh. Uh after the fact, after I felt a huge amount of guilt, you know, I don't want to hurt anyone. Yeah, um, I started thinking about it, and my daughter actually asked me about it, and we talked about this as a like a kind of a learning thing. You know, he's on the wrong side of the street, on the sidewalk, on an electric scooter doing 25 miles an hour, and then made the decision to go in front of a car without making eye contact. I the more I think about it, I don't feel guilty. I I I'm sure there's somebody out there that's gonna be mad at me that rides one of these things, but truthfully, in this in this world right now, he made a lot of bad decisions. That's like a Darwin Awards. Uh he and I'm I'm thankful that nobody got hurt. Uh you know I it didn't do anything to my vehicle, so I didn't notice anything. He those solid tires had popped off, so he couldn't ride the bike, you know. So his bike was or his scooter was usable. Um but man, I am a little torn because I'm a huge e-bike proponent and I like them. Yeah, but it does make you understand that there are some e-bikes that are causing or e-vehicles or whatever you want to say it that are not a good representation and not necessarily good for society. And somebody riding 25 miles an hour, no helmet on the sidewalk on the wrong side is just uh yeah, they're just gonna get hurt.
Host:JoshAnderson:You heard it here first. Dane Dane Higgins is an e-scooter gatekeeper.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, it's not even that. It's like you said, it's like I'm more worried about you know, maybe the education when you buy that thing should be out there. Maybe there should be something that helps people understand. I don't think Walmart has the educational program. That's uh yeah. It's those are the issues that get lumped into everybody. And so then people out there riding uh uh you know an actual e-bike, doing it as a trail bike because they have either a reason that they need to or or doing it responsibly. Um I knew better than to bring up an e-bike joke because I knew it was gonna send you an e-bike.
Host:JoshAnderson:It triggers me.
Host:DaneHiggins:It triggers me. Yeah. So I just had to throw that out there because I would love it if somebody had uh an opinion and they want to want to share it. Yeah. Like I I've you know those little free or not free ones, but the ones you get downtown. The birds. The birds and stuff like that. I get those. I think they're actually kind of cool, you know, if you don't have to park you know nearby and you can scoot around. But uh, just don't go the wrong way on the sidewalk at twenty-five miles an hour. And if a guy's pulling out of a thing, don't don't just go in front of it.
Host:JoshAnderson:Like, no matter what you're riding, whether it's an acoustic bike or an e-bike or an e-scooter or a regular scooter or a skateboard, don't go the wrong way and don't pull out in front of cars.
Host:DaneHiggins:No, I mean there he's just going way too fast.
Host:JoshAnderson:So all right, let's get off this tangent. Sorry. Sorry. That was seven minutes of your life. Seven minutes of my life. Seven minutes. That's perfect. All right, I have my own Darwin Awards story.
Host:DaneHiggins:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Host:JoshAnderson:So I am just now starting to get feeling back in the top of my mouth. I told you. Inside my mouth. I told you if you keep doing that, that'll happen. That's not what you think. No, so on Tuesday night, we've got uh I've got I've got a group group of guys and we do a uh a night ride, we call a fight club, and and we were out doing that ride. You're not supposed to talk about it. Not supposed to talk about fight club. Um so I'm the slowest in the group, right? So I'm in the back and I get a cactus stuck in my arm. Like a meaty, it's like a choya, but like the the like the chunky green ones, right? With the big like gnarly needles. Yeah, the anorexic ones, chubby. It's it's dark outside. I don't have a helmet light on, I just have one on my bars, and I see it, and it's like kind of hurting. So I'm like, oh shit, I know I'm supposed to stop and like get a comb, and you know, you kind of use a comb or an afro pick or whatever to kind of get it out.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah.
Host:JoshAnderson:But I didn't do that. I just reached over with my right arm to my left arm, or with my right hand to my left arm, and I tried to pull it out with my fingers. Oh god. And it got stuck in my glove and and like very painful. And I just instinctively went to bite it to pull it out of my glove, right? Just I gotta I gotta question your instincts. Yeah, exactly. So I got most of it off, and that was no big deal, but a little three-pronged piece, like maybe you know, a half inch, gets in my mouth, turns around, one of the three prongs gets stuck between my front teeth from the inside out, like poking my front lip through my tooth. The other two prongs stick in the top of my palate. Oh my god, what is wrong with you? Why didn't you not just stop your bite?
Host:DaneHiggins:Jesus Christ. So I so then I stopped. Or why didn't you have a camera when you're filming this? Because this would have been great.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yeah. So everyone's like way ahead of me, and I pull over, I'm like, oh my god. And it took a while to get it out because it was like it was wedged up into my palate, like I don't know how far, but far enough that it was hard to get out. And then the front piece was like stuck between my front two teeth. So I finally like wiggled it and got it out, and I was bleeding and spitting blood out. Jesus. And then like an hour later, the whole top of my mouth went numb. And I it's been two days now, and it's I'm just now getting feeling back in the top of my mouth.
Host:DaneHiggins:So there's so you're giving me crap about the Eight, and you just grossed everybody out with your bloody mouth story.
Host:JoshAnderson:And I go tell the guys, they're like, Where like what happened? Did you crash or something? I'm like, not exactly. Cactus. They're like, oh, well, what happened? I'm like, oh, it's a long story. Like Oh god.
Host:DaneHiggins:I felt that story because cactus, I you know, for some of the listeners that know cactus, it is painful. And when you a lot of cactus will have a sheath on it, so when you pull it out, that sheath kind of stays in you, yeah, which causes a lot of the uh you know, I don't discomfort or what have you. Sometimes they're poisonous or they have a poison. Yeah, something or some kind of allergic reaction or something, yeah. Yeah, so there's lots of stuff that's going on there. But uh for people that don't have cactus, just be thankful. You probably have some bug that does something similar. You know, we don't have the bugs here.
Host:JoshAnderson:We don't have ticks causing us not to be beef.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, there's uh so everywhere's got stuff you got to deal with. Yeah, for sure.
Host:JoshAnderson:All right, so we're gonna we're gonna jump into uh bike shop secrets episode here since you guys like these and I've got a list of questions of things that I've run into recently.
Host:DaneHiggins:Sounds good.
Host:JoshAnderson:Which by the way is kind of like how this works. Like I'm at in my garage working on shit, and I'm like, God damn it, how do you do this? Or I got a question, and then I come here and I ask Dane, and oftentimes I text Dane, like, what the fuck should I do here, man? He's like, You're an idiot. Take it to a shop, let me help you. So take it to a shop, you're an idiot. Okay. Uh the first thing was um my buddy is uh looking at switching to a different frame. And he's just gonna, he has an opportunity to buy just the frame. And so I'm like, hey, I think most of your parts should swap over, but there's some that that that may not. So I thought it would be cool to talk through if you're thinking about switching frames and keeping as many of your existing components, your suspension, your drivetrain, your cranks, your wheels, your handlebars, all that stuff, as much as you, you know, your your your seat post, and I know this is like a deep topic.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, I'm I'm gonna narrow it down after you get it.
Host:JoshAnderson:Okay, yeah, you need you narrow it down. But like um what sh what do our listeners need to, and and myself as well, what do we need to consider uh to ensure that we've got you know um compatible parts for the new frame? And as I'm kind of budgeting it out, I need to know like what am I gonna need to buy or what what will just like swap over.
Host:DaneHiggins:So over to you, man. We'll kind of narrow this down. So so there's a couple companies that are starting to change the way that they do business and they're offering frames.
Host:JoshAnderson:Like Revel.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, and uh Intense. Um, Intense as well.
Host:JoshAnderson:That's right. We talked about that before.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, and so it it kind of makes a lot of sense business-wise in this really turbulent times, uh, because they don't have to try and keep up uh with every new product that comes out. Uh you know, the my biggest example is when Fox put out a new damper in their fork, but the fork stayed the same. Anyone who had that old damper in a box on their bike all of a sudden had to start thinking about discounting their brand new bike that's never been out of a box just because the damper was different. And that I think that made a lot of manufacturers kind of second guess whether they should actually offer a full bike or not. And uh especially the smaller ones which are trying to make ends meet. Um, so we're gonna narrow this down to mountain bikes, we're gonna narrow it down to one by drivetrains. Perfect. Uh, and and the reason that is is because you do a front derailer, it gets worse. Uh, it gets so bad. And then uh not road bikes, also very bad. So there's a couple things. One you have to think about um rear hub spacing, is one. So what are the typical rear hub spacing?
Host:JoshAnderson:So they boost and super boost and all that? Yeah, how does that work?
Host:DaneHiggins:Boost and super boost are probably the new the most common now, but let's say you have a 2012 bike, you know, which is not unheard of, that somebody has something like a stump jumper that's got 29 or full suspension, and you're sprucing it up with a new frame, that may have a non-boost rear hub.
Host:JoshAnderson:Okay. And so what's the numbers for boost?
Host:DaneHiggins:Uh so boost is 148. 148 millimeter. And then it's a 12 millimeter axle in the rear. That's a pretty standard size that's on most bikes. So when you say boost, that's usually it.
Host:JoshAnderson:So boost is 148 by 12 millimeter, and that's that's the spacing of the rear axle and the diameter of the of the through axle.
Host:DaneHiggins:The through axle. Yep. Yeah. And so uh if your wheel is gonna fit or not, you know. And so uh then the next one is super boost. Yeah, you'll find that on different brands. Pivot is the one we sell, so they do a lot of those. There's a couple other brands that use it. I think Evil and uh there's a couple others that I honestly can't tell you off the top of my head, but it's not just Pivot. And um that spacing is 157. Oh my, I almost forgot that, and that's pretty bad. We would have had to use Bob. I do it all the time. Well, and I've got I've got a ton of super boost bikes. Um so superboost, so the hub spacing is important. You gotta have that. Uh the next thing I would say is your bottom bracket. Well, hang on, since we're on hub spacing, can we go to the front of the bike?
Host:JoshAnderson:Is there any differences in the front of the bike from a hub spacing perspective?
Host:DaneHiggins:Doing just a frame and you're bringing your fork over, whatever your fork and wheel is will stay the same. Perfect. So that won't be an issue. So the next thing, so if you want to go on that note, the head tube and the headset are gonna in a lot of cases change. Um most bikes now are tapered, which means that the lower bearing is bigger in diameter than the upper bearing.
Host:JoshAnderson:So it's like one and a half, is that right?
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, for the most part, there's a little goofiness that every once in a while will pop up. I've got a fork in suspension right now, is one and a half and one and a half. Oh, really? Yeah, it's a straight one and a half. It's an older older diameter. And then there is uh a new kind of thing that's happening on some of the bigger hit bikes where they're putting I may get this wrong because it's new, but fifty-two millimeter on the top and bottom.
Host:JoshAnderson:Okay.
Host:DaneHiggins:But then the upper bearing is shrunk to a one and one-eighth. Okay. Uh so like the big thing to know from what I just said is that the outer diameter of the headset cup is all very variable. So you can't just take a headset from one bike and stick it in another. Sometimes they match, sometimes they don't. Sometimes just the lower cup matches and the upper doesn't, or vice versa. And so the headset companies have actually started selling the headsets separate now. You don't buy a headset like you used to, you know, where you get the upper and the lower. Yeah, you can buy one or the other. Like I remember, you know, the biggest candy that we would get for our bikes was a Chris King headset, and you would buy the whole headset and it was one one eighth, and you'd press it in, and boom, you're done. Now you may have a different lower and a different upper. And Chris King even sells them separate, or they'll have a configurator, you know, where it's like they'll you'll put in the dimensions. So that is probably one of the harder ones that we see people struggle with. Because there's also a standard where they may actually mold the carbon fiber frame or even aluminum frame to have the bearing seat, so you don't actually put a cup in the frame, you just put the bearing in. Right. And so that can be very complicated.
Host:JoshAnderson:All right, so we've so we'll we'll we'll keep track so we can remind you. So rear hub spacing, boost booster super boost, headset.
Host:DaneHiggins:Headset, what's next? Um on your head tube of the bike can change between brands. So if you are getting an older bike and then putting a newer bike, it's more likely that it'll shrink. And so you'll have plenty of steer tube on your fork. But in the opposite, we had a lot of um people trying to put old forks on new frames.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yeah, or vice versa. Yeah, or new fork on old frames.
Host:DaneHiggins:Or sometimes a brand will be really committed to a low stack height in the front, and then the next brand isn't very committed, and then the fork won't fit like a steer tool.
Host:JoshAnderson:Fork steer length length, yep. Making sure you got enough. So we got rear hub spacing, we got headset and fork, steer, and length.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yep, yeah. Now, once you've got that fork on the bike and it's the fork you used to have, your stem will fit that because it used to, but you may change the stack depending on how many spacers and stuff.
Host:JoshAnderson:All right, so since we're on the front of the bike before we move back, yeah, does rake matter between frames? So And and what and maybe explain what rake is.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, offset is one thing. Rake's a different, so there's it's kind of if you if you try and look up the subject, some people call one thing one thing, and it it gets a little weird. Um the biggest thing.
Host:JoshAnderson:But I see like forty-four and fifty-two rake a lot on for on forks. When I buy a fork, I gotta pick do I want a forty-four or a fifty-two?
Host:DaneHiggins:So the latest fork that you bought was a rigid for a gravel bike. Yep. And the term rake is more likely gonna be on a rigid fork. Okay. Whereas on a fork, a suspension fork, which I deal with way more, it's offset.
Host:JoshAnderson:Okay.
Host:DaneHiggins:And then it gets weird because where they do the offset is a little weird. And there was a little while West Time where they were nobody was doing it the same. So I will tell you the offset will change the angle of the fork blades relative to the steer tube. And that can increase or decrease the trail of the fork, which affects the handling. Right. Okay.
Host:JoshAnderson:So if you can match the offset to the new frame, you're probably the best bet.
Host:DaneHiggins:The fork manufacturer will usually have a recommended. I will tell you that the difference that you will feel on the bike can often not be noticeable. Um, some people will freak out about it. My advice when people are asking me about it is if you're buying a brand new fork and you have a choice, I would buy the right one. Buy the right one. If you're buying a used fork and it's a killer deal, I would not stress super a lot about it. Okay. And then there are is another point where they were kind of fiddling with geometry as 29s were coming out, where people were actually finding that one would do different characteristics than the other, so they would tune their ride by changing the offset. Yeah.
Host:JoshAnderson:So offset is a nice to have, but probably not a have to have to make your bike work with a new frame.
Host:DaneHiggins:It can affect it, but it's you know, it's only it's going to affect a little bit of trail and geometry difference, but it's subtle, and so it's not something to freak out about. Uh, it's more important that you have an appropriate fork. So, like if you had a let's say um a Trek Supercaliber cross-country bike that's a hundred millimeter travel bike.
Host:JoshAnderson:Ah, that's a great one. So map making sure the travel matches.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, if you take that fork and then put it on a pivot switchblade, which is supposed to have 160 mil, then you're gonna need to change the fork. The the length of that fork needs to be longer so that the bottom bracket doesn't drag on the ground while you're riding.
Host:JoshAnderson:And most of the bike frame websites will say, Hey, this bike is set up for this much travel in the front for forks of this range. And if it doesn't, I've found that if you just send them a note, they'll respond back and say, Yeah, like I I I wanted to do something crazy with a Revel Ranger and put a big old giant fork on it. And I wrote Revel, and I'm like, hey, this is what I want to do. Is this crazy? And they're like, Yeah, don't do that.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah. Yeah, and and that's one of the one of the bike shop secrets you should know about when it comes to that. Sometimes the manufacturer will tell you not to do something, and their motivation is to protect the integrity of the design.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yeah.
Host:DaneHiggins:And sometimes their motivation is to not break the frame. Yeah.
Host:JoshAnderson:So and it's hard to know which is which, right?
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, and so uh I'll give you an example. Um we had a team rider for the guru team who was riding a Santa Cruz, I think a nomad, and she wanted to put a triple clamp fork on it, uh, a full like DVO triple downhill fork because she loved the bike, she loved the fit, and she didn't really need a ton of rear travel, she just wanted a little more in the front, get a little raked out. Um I I emailed Santa Cruz and they're like, no, the the head tube, and they they were nice enough to actually tell me why. Sometimes they don't tell you. Um but the head tube is not designed for the stiffness and it it if the fork doesn't flex, the head tube is not strong enough. Not designed to flex and you could break the head tube off effectively. Exactly. And so they've factored in a single crown fork which has flex in it. And if you go stiffening that, you could break the fork and or the head tube. And so that was a good answer because it it showed us that there is a real reason. So um uh Rocky Mountain Slayer is comes with a standard fork, and then we found out it's approved for a triple clamp, and then later the next year, they actually made a park version which had a triple clamp. Oh interesting. So some companies think about that and some don't. Um, there's uh been other things where so I'll give you an example, Chris Kokalis, or if Brian Mason's listening, they'll be mad at me. From Pivot. From Pivot. I rode the Phoenix downhill bike. Um, it's spec'd for a Fox X2 rear shock uh uh as a downhill bike.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yeah.
Host:DaneHiggins:Good shock, very linear, but I like coil, and so I put a coil on. Right on Pivot's website, it says not approved for coil. Most of that, for the most part, is because the leverage ratio isn't correct, right? And you won't get the right feel, and it will mess with the integrity of their design.
Host:JoshAnderson:Like the ride, the ride quality, not necessarily integrity like break the frame, but like it just won't feel right.
Host:DaneHiggins:There is some bikes that have what's called a cleavish joint for the rear shock that will un they will load a shock poorly, and a coil doesn't have as much stiffness built in because it's just got one small damper rod rather than the air can also creating stiffness, and so those will either tear up a rear shock or sometimes break a rear shock, which has happened. Okay. So there's that was a combo. Hey, it's not really designed for that because the leverage range ratio is not correct for that. And this design has been known to eat up rear shocks or actually break them. And they don't want to be responsible if that shock breaks and hurts their frame, they're not gonna warranty that. That's not a warranty if they told you not to do it.
Host:JoshAnderson:I I would think that most frames come with a rear shock if you buy just a frame. But let's say just there's a couple examples where they don't. Do you not also have to worry about eyelet to eyelet or what's that called stroke length or whatever?
Host:DaneHiggins:If they're gonna sell you a frame and it doesn't have a shock, they're definitely gonna tell you what's supposed to be on there. Right. And the length of the s the shock is the eye to eye.
Host:JoshAnderson:Eye to eye.
Host:DaneHiggins:And then there's what's called a stroke length. And the stroke length is how far that shock can actually compress or c collapse. Right. And then some shocks, like we found out where we worked with your specialized, the shock can be the same shock, but have two different stroke lengths, and that's a limiter that's put inside the shock. And so with yours, we pulled the limiter out. I didn't even know we did that. Yeah, that's overstroking. And so when you do that, you have to test the bike to make sure there's clearance. So again, in the case of Rocky Mountain, they build their bikes very modular and very adjustable. Uh, and so we found that you could really play with stuff on a Rocky Mountain, right? And you wouldn't have frame interference, you know. And it's one of the one of the hidden selling features of that bike is that you could kind of turn it into different travels, you know, depending on what what shocks you put on. And so some bikes are really fluid that way. Um, other bikes you have to buy brackets to do that. Yep. Um, and then other bikes, so like I have a Norco Optic right now, and it's uh kind of a weird bike. And uh it I love it, it actually rides super smooth, and I gotta tell you, it's one of the smoothest bikes I've ever ridden. And it's a like a 125mm rear travel bike. Um, but it's a high pivot.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yep, we talked about that before.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, and so when we were talking to Norco, I don't know if on the podcast I brought it up, but in private I brought it up with them. We did in private. Yeah. And uh so I'm gonna overstroke it, not necessarily on their recommendation, you know.
Host:JoshAnderson:Just on the suspension guru's recommendation.
Host:DaneHiggins:And so I'm gonna eke out a little bit more travel out of that bike because I feel like it could get a little bit more rowdy than a hundred and twenty-five millimeter usually is, and it's super smooth. And so I have uh one of the new RockShock vivids, and it has a stroke limiter in it, and I'm gonna pull that out um and make sure there's clearance.
Host:JoshAnderson:So and when you make sure there's clearance, what's the I know, but tell tell our listeners like what's the process to do that?
Host:DaneHiggins:So uh this is tricky because you have to be careful uh because you can actually damage the bike while you're testing it. Well, you can, but realistically you can also get a false uh false positive, false positive or false idea of the travel. Uh inside a lot of shocks, they have a bottom-out bumper. And if you collapse that, so let's say it's an air shock and you take the air valve, the the Schrader valve out and let it collapse, and then you slowly sit on it and make sure there's nothing contacting. You don't want to jump on it because again, you don't want to damage it. But you're gonna look for any kind of limitations in that travel. Um sometimes there's a bridge across the rear tire that can come up and contact the seat tube. Uh sometimes the tire will actually hit the seat tube, you know. Uh sometimes there's a lower swing arm that has, you know, kind of a it will hit something else, you know, uh like the way the frame shaped or something. There's a lot of things you have to think about. The biggest thing that we have to watch out for is you could have a five millimeter bottom-out bumper in that shock, and it may not be compressed like it would be.
Host:JoshAnderson:During your test. Yeah. So you've got to leave, you gotta leave yourself some.
Host:DaneHiggins:You have to have a good idea of how much more it's gonna keep going, even though you didn't get it to go all the way. And and and you have to be safe, you know. So I've had a couple people actually, after we talked about overstroking yours, actually come in and ask if they could overstroke their bikes. We tested them, and one of them was a pivot, and I'm like, I can't do this on a pivot. There is not enough room. They've designed the most travel you can get out of this bike. That's interesting.
Host:JoshAnderson:So, I mean, uh fr from an overstroke perspective, it sounds like the smartest thing to do is to bring it into an expert like yourself. Yeah. If you want to do that, just to make sure you're not gonna jack something up. Because you because you the last thing you want to do is like crack your frame.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, you don't want to put some damage in because the bike company will know. You know, they're you know, when you go to them and say, Oh, I don't know what happened. Like this came from this you did this because of Mountain Cog, didn't you? Exactly. So you do want to be smart about it. Some brands uh, you know, know you're gonna probably do it, but may still not approve it. Uh and so that's the thing about uh when you're dealing with some of these, you know, when the brand tells you not to do something, they are protecting the design, uh how they intended it to use. They're also protecting the integrity of the quality of the ride that they wanted it to be ridden as. And then they may be, you know, protecting you from damaging something. So you if you're gonna mess with the bike, you you gotta know what you're doing, and then you gotta own it if you mess it up.
Host:JoshAnderson:Right on, man. All right, so we got rear hub spacing, we got talked about the front spacing, which typically your fork will go with your wheel.
Host:DaneHiggins:If it doesn't have a shock, you gotta match the eye-to-eye and stroke.
Host:JoshAnderson:Eye to eye to eye and the stroke of the of the rear suspension.
Host:DaneHiggins:Every once in a while, uh you gotta make sure that the shock will fit. So we have a new bike that we're selling that we want to put um it's it's it needs a little help in the rear end uh to be a little plusher. And so uh some of the customers are trying to put the Fox X2, which is uh a linear, very nice the new 2026, I think is what they're calling it, is a really nice version, and uh they fixed a lot of the issues, and so people are really wanting this thing, but it's kind of bulky, and on this one particular bike it won't actually fit on the bike, and so you have to be careful.
Host:JoshAnderson:Some of them had the piggyback uh reserve as well.
Host:DaneHiggins:Santa Cruz had some issues on some of theirs where they have that little tunnel that you put the shock into, and people want to convert to coil, and the coil would rub on the tunnel, and so they've corrected that on a lot of their bikes, but you have to watch out for that. And then we had a bike, uh we sold a bike uh brand called Felt, and on their Cendy 275 bike, um it had the way that the frame is shaped, when you put a reservoir on the rear, yeah, the reservoir. Could contact the frame. And so you couldn't put any shock with the reservoir on that. So we ended up putting a lot of Cane Creek inlines because they didn't have reservoirs, but you could get a coil.
Host:JoshAnderson:Interesting.
Host:DaneHiggins:So there are constraints when you're putting a shock on that you gotta make sure you're aware of.
Host:JoshAnderson:So while we're on shocks, there's a couple things I just just thought of. There's different ways that the shocks connect too, right? There's like trunion and something else. Like what's that?
Host:DaneHiggins:That's there's trunyon and then there's a normal eyelet. Yep. Um then you'll have some specialty ones, like specialize had a direct mount where it was it was designed to go into their yoke and it was just for them. Right. Um there's been pull shocks in the past which are really goofy. Man, you don't want to get one of those. Nobody makes those anymore, but it was an issue.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yep.
Host:DaneHiggins:And um there's uh I'm trying to think if there's how many other ones. I I had a Jekyll that was crazy. It was kind of like a trunion, right? But you could move the the mount up and down on the shock so you could change the angles of the bike. It was really crazy. Really crazy. Yeah. Um, it was kind of a cool concept, tell you the truth, but uh can't that died with the Cannondale's version of that Jekyll. They have a Jekyll, I think, now, but it doesn't use that. Doesn't use that. Yeah.
Host:JoshAnderson:And then and then um hardware, isn't there like different spacers and things like that? That can be really tricky.
Host:DaneHiggins:That's the bane of my existence because there's no standard, so they have they have six millimeter holes, they got eight millimeter holes, they got ten millimeter holes, um I can't remember if there's a smaller one. Uh, but then the width changes, and I don't really know how these people decide what width they use. But you know, sometimes you'll have like a three-inch long piece of adjust, you know, um uh like shock, they call them shock hardware or mounting hardware. And then sometimes they're barely bigger than the the shock itself, you know, width-wise, and so and I have to keep all that stuff. So if you buy a new shock from me, I gotta have that stuff lying around so that I can put that new shock on your bike. Yeah, or you're ordering stuff. They've calmed down on the the interface in the shock uh the hardware that fits in the shock. It's gotten a little bit more uniform. There's uh some that use a bushing that you actually press into the shock and it stays in there, and then you put the hardware on it, and RockShock uses that a lot. And then Fox uses uh either a five or a nine piece, I can't remember. They have some crazy ones, they have stainless steel, stuff like that, but where you put these bushings in, and so you can't mix the brands, right? Oh, I didn't know that. But the inner eyelid of the shock is the same, so I can put Fox hardware on the RockShock. I just have to pull that bushing out to do it, and you have a special tool to get that pressed-in bushing out. So it's it's not easy to do in your garage, you know, some specialty tools for sure. Yeah, for sure.
Host:JoshAnderson:All right, uh, one more thing I can think of, and maybe I'm missing something. Well, two more, actually, two more things I can think of. How about C post?
Host:DaneHiggins:Okay, that's a good one. So that one is like a lot of these where you can really just get into the weeds. So dropper posts. We're gonna narrow that down to dropper posts.
Host:JoshAnderson:Okay.
Host:DaneHiggins:Okay, and the reason that is is because a regular seat post, you just need a diameter.
Host:JoshAnderson:So as long as the diameter is right 31.6, 30.9, for the seven two, whatever, twenty eight.
Host:DaneHiggins:And then it's long enough to fit your legs. If if you had a regular seat post and it's long enough or maybe even too long, you can actually cut that seat post in most cases and just put it in there. Not a dropper. We're not talking about cutting down a dropper. No, not a dropper. Uh although there is one on the market you do that. Uh so there's always an exception. Right. Um, okay, so droppers, here's the things that because people come in all the time and they're like, I just bought this off of line online and it doesn't fit. And yeah. Here's a shim, go home. Yeah, you thought it was easy. Now, some of the dropper companies will have like kind of a measuring uh tool, you know, to to show you the the stuff, and and that does okay if you're you for the most part, but you need to have the frame to be able to do those measurements. And then and then there's a kind of definitions, they call it insertion depth, which sounds so dare.
Host:JoshAnderson:You're talking about six millimeter holes, eight millimeter holes, ten millimeter holes, and insertion depth. I've got all kinds of jokes, but we're gonna keep it clean today. Um, this is not that podcast.
Host:DaneHiggins:It's not that podcast. Do they even have that podcast?
Host:JoshAnderson:I think they do. Really? We might have that podcast. There is a secret mountain cog podcast. Oh, don't tell me that. It is it is on the web.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah.
Host:JoshAnderson:And uh It's dirty. We we owe we owe our friend uh Audi East a hat. He keeps writing me asking me to send him a hat. I guess we made a commitment to send a hat and he he followed through, so we got I gotta send a hat out. Okay. But anyone that can find uh we'll do we'll do this. Anyone that can find the hidden mountain cog episode. What's it called so they'll know that they found it? I'm not gonna well they'll know when they found it. Oh, okay. All right. Anyone that can find the hidden mountain cog uh podcast episode, uh, you'd have to be a longtime listener because it's like something we talked about in the early days. Yeah. Anyways, uh it's out there. Well I'll fund a hundred dollar gift card to Guru Bikes if you can find it.
Host:DaneHiggins:Wait, why do I get it? Oh, you mean they'll get a hundred dollar gift cards. Yeah, I'll fund it. Yeah.
Host:JoshAnderson:And uh you'll hook them up. Dude, you're giving away money now on the podcast? I I want to see if anybody can find the hidden mountain cog episode.
Host:DaneHiggins:I'm just saying we're doing product reviews. Now we're gonna start giving away stuff. I mean, this is legit. We're kind of real here. I'm just saying. Shit, shit. I didn't mean that. I just need to take this time to have everybody like and subscribe. Follow us, send us to your friends.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yes, yeah. Yeah, find the hidden mountain. What the fuck were we talking about? I don't even know what it is. Insertion. Insertion depth, yeah. That hidden mountain cog episode may have some insertion depth humor in it.
Host:DaneHiggins:Okay. All right, so let's let's get back. Uh so seat post. You've got a ton of different variables. So the the thing that you have that's number one is the diameter. So you can have 27.2, you can have 30.9, 31.6, you can have 34.9. There may be a couple, I don't know. It was like 28.6 too, right? Uh so in modern bikes, not as much. That was like a Trek size or I'm sorry, that was a special. Uh shit. Sorry. Uh, that was a Schwin size.
Host:JoshAnderson:Schwin.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, I think if I remember correctly. Okay. Yeah. I somebody who's as old as I am may remember better than I do, but uh Schwin had kind of their own.
Host:JoshAnderson:Anybody that's as old as you is not gonna remember well.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah. Um 27-2, we don't see a lot anymore, except on maybe gravel bikes. Yeah, or little kid bikes. Yeah, maybe kids' bikes, but uh for the most part, 30.9, 31.6 are the number one, and then there's been a big push lately to go to this 34.9. Okay. Do you know why? Stiffness? Yeah, uh stiffness and strength.
Host:JoshAnderson:Okay, yeah, makes sense.
Host:DaneHiggins:Um the I see, because we service droppers, I see a number of them bent. And so, and everybody's obsessed with the longest possible dropper. I don't know if it's some sort of phallic thing. I'm not really sure what's going on. But everybody's like, if I can't run a 250 dropper posting detector, and it's it followed the the twerking trend.
Host:JoshAnderson:So I think people just like to drop it low, man.
Host:DaneHiggins:I I don't know. Uh, but I will tell you, if you're a big guy and I'm a big guy, you are riding too long a post and you go through like a G out, you know, where you're sitting and you you you put that leverage, you can bend that post and you're now buying a new post.
Host:JoshAnderson:So because the the amount of stuff you have to change, yeah, yeah, and it's happened quite a bit.
Host:DaneHiggins:And so um for the record, I've never bent to post. Yeah, yeah. It's most of the time we see it if somebody's kind of riding along and they're seated and they hit a dip on an e-bike. Yeah, not on an e-bike, it doesn't have to be an e-bike. Not everybody who rides an e-bike are big, so um uh Lacey. Uh so fair. But she would probably bend a post. She would bend a post before I would bend the post, probably. Exactly. So um so the diameter uh 34-9 allows them to actually make the stanchion bigger, which will give it a little more strength. And so the problem is the bike manufacturers don't like it. Don't don't necessarily, they haven't universally adopted it. Adopted it. So um some have, some haven't. But so you've got the diameter, that's number one. Yep. Then you have to figure out what your leg length and where your saddle is going to be on that frame that you have never ridden. Right. Which is tricky. Yep. And then you have to make sure that you get the appropriate height that you can actually use. But if there's something so common on full suspension bikes is they may sometimes they have something that blocks the insertion down. Yeah. We've actually had this happen on hardtails where the rivets for the bottles stop the the post from going in. And so you have a certain amount of depth that it can go in, and some bikes they don't give you a lot of options. Uh some bikes have made it their mission to give you full, you know.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yep.
Host:DaneHiggins:And so you've got to figure that out. If if you buy a 200 post, that means it's it's from the dust wiper on the dropper post up to where it stops when it's fully compressed is 200 millimeters. So then you still have your collar height, which is the the seal, yep. Um that that is always too big to go in the frame, so that's got to sit outside of the frame. And then you have your clamp up to the rail, and then you have your saddle height. So all of those numbers are are stacked to give you your saddle height, and so you have to be able to figure all that out without a frame that's that you don't have.
Host:JoshAnderson:So so probably a good recommendation, you can you can very easily check to see if the diameter matches, and if you've got a dropper and the diameter matches, it might work.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, yeah.
Host:JoshAnderson:And then when you get the frame, test the C post that you have, and if it doesn't work, whatever C post you want to buy, all those websites have like here's how to calculate the size that you need, or or call up your friendly bike shop. But um, if you do, you better buy the seat post from them.
Host:DaneHiggins:So I'm gonna just throw a little wrench into that because it makes it sound super easy. It's not easy. Well, if you don't have the bike to know what your seat post length is gonna be. Um You have to get the frame before you do this. Yeah. So and so if you if you don't have the right diameter and you're gonna buy a seat post. Wait till you get the frame. You gotta get the frame, and then you probably should see if you can scrounge up a dummy seat post before you buy it. And actually that happens. There's a bike in the shop right now where we built a custom hardtail for a customer, Babyfoot.
Host:JoshAnderson:Babyfoot!
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, the bike's name is Otto, so you'll see Otto show up on Instagram, I'm sure. He'll have his own uh Instagram page. But it's a new house, uh Hummingbird.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yeah, we saw those guys at the uh Sedona Bike Fest.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, it's a really cool bike, but we did not uh put a dropper post on his build until we got him in here and fit because he's a tall guy, yeah, and we had to make sure that we got the right one. And so even in the shop, we just had a dummy post in there, then fit him, and then we either have the post in stock, or often I have to order them. There's so many different configurations that I a lot of times I have to order them. So I had to order him the right post size for his bike, and so that happens a lot. So it's it's it's even at a bike shop level, it's hard to have everything in stock.
Host:JoshAnderson:So we we gotta do a little rabbit hole on baby foot here. First of all, he's got a contender coming after him for the human e-bike uh classification, Chris, my buddy Chris. Oh, they need to ride together. He is a human e-bike, yeah. He rides with us, like I can go as fast as I can on my e-bike, he stays on my e the whole time. Nice. Um but I'm looking at his bike and it's yellow. It's a big bird like mine.
Host:DaneHiggins:Well, school bus, because Mike was a teacher.
Host:JoshAnderson:Oh, that makes sense. School bus.
Host:DaneHiggins:And that's why he called it auto.
Host:JoshAnderson:Do you know why? No, because no, I don't. Simpsons. School bus driver was auto. Auto, that's funny. There's always always a story. Right? Okay. He typically runs those Versus tires because he can color match and he's got Maxis on there. What are those recons or something? Where did he buy that bike? Where'd he buy that bike? From you? Yeah.
Host:DaneHiggins:And you would not put versus carry versus you kidding me? They do have a cotton candy color that I thought about buying just because it's pink, and I'm like, um, I could show up to the trail with pink tires. That'd be fun. Uh but I'm just not gonna buy a tire because the color. Like, I just can't do that.
Host:JoshAnderson:All right, you think we have uh exhausted seat post, maybe seat collar? Um, that usually comes with the bike or with the frame.
Host:DaneHiggins:Now, if you want a pimped one, you then again you have to figure out what the what the outer diameter of the tube that it's going over on.
Host:JoshAnderson:By by the way, all this knowledge and all this checking and making sure everything's compatible, like this is part of the service that you get by working with your local bike shop, is these guys are experts in it. Yeah. Save you a whole bunch of time and money and and headache. Um if you're just not sure, you know, find a good bike shop and go in, is what I say.
Host:DaneHiggins:One thing that um that did pop up, uh I was telling you about that seat post. Uh, if you that that customer had bought the seat post themselves. Ahead of time. Uh they bought the same brand that we carry. Guess how much more uh sorry, guess how much less they paid than us? Six dollars. Zero dollars. Like they paid the same amount as if they would have bought it from us, um, but they got the wrong length. And so when our fitter Tyler went to fit them, they needed a different post. And now it's a used post, and that company won't take it back, you know, if it's a used product. And so here we have the situation where had they bought it from us and it was the wrong post, you could have taken care of it, they would have spent the same amount and we would have swapped them out. And and so there's a lot of hidden if you want to talk about secrets of the bike shop, uh, one of the things that people I feel like don't get is how many hidden things that they get from the shop that they don't even know. You know. Um I'll give you an example. We had a customer, very good customer, come in and he had purchased some tires online, but he wants us to put them on his on his rims. Yeah. Uh we went and put them on the rims and then sent him on his way. Um unfortunately, and you can give us a little shit for this. Yeah, I'll take it.
Host:JoshAnderson:I know this story already, and I'm gonna give you shit for it.
Host:DaneHiggins:Well, I'll I'll give you I'll give you more specifics. They were the wrong size. No, no, that wasn't the size. No. Oh no, this is different. They weren't tubless ready and they weren't holding air long. Ah and so uh in this case, um, it is uh they were road wheels. And in this case, what what is common is road bikes have not fully embraced tubeless. Yeah. They're starting tube. And it's very common that a road bike can have a nice road bike can have wheels on it that may not be tubeless ready. We knew that wasn't the case because we sold him the rims. Uh, so we knew they were tubeless ready. He had told us to set them up tubeless, but he had brought them in. We kind of went on faith. And the other thing that we kind of noted that does happen is on road bikes, they hide the logos quite a bit. Yeah. They're not as this big uh hot patch.
Host:JoshAnderson:You have to like you have to get in there and it's like it's like etched into the black. You have to get in there with a with a microscope and a fucking flashlight.
Host:DaneHiggins:Mountain bikes have gotten pretty anal about putting it clear what's going on. Yeah like what your tire compound is, what size it is, um, if it's tubeless, you know, everything. Like uh if it's got sidewall protection. Like they they the it's a selling feature for them, and they were pretty loud and proud about it in most cases. Road bike tires, not necessarily, so our mechanic did not notice they weren't tubeless. He kind of took on faith that this guy had bought tubeless and they weren't. And then we ran into this problem. Now he doesn't have wheels that hold air, you know, because those road bikes are very sensitive to their tubeless setup, and non-tubless road tires don't have a bead that locks properly, and they don't necessarily have the profile that locks properly. And even with sealant, they they often won't hold air. So, this situation where had he bought those tires from us and we had made that mistake, there would have been a zero net for him, we would have put the right ones on and he would have gone on his way. But because it was bought, we don't there's nothing you can do for him. We don't have that opportunity, yeah. And so that's one hidden secret that people don't know. Another hidden secret is uh uh somebody came in and they wanted to build their own wheels. And building wheels is it happens, and and and honestly, there's books on it, there's videos on it. It's not impossible to do. Um it's a dark art. It is one of those things where the more you do it, the easier it is. Um, but some people just want to work on their own stuff. There's nothing wrong with it. I've built my own race wheels before, they were awesome. Took me like 17 days to do it, but but uh but they were great, you know. Um so this person had come in and said, I need this length spoke, and I'm gonna build my own wheels. Please order me these spokes. And so we ordered them the spokes. They weren't the correct ones because they had not used the calculator correctly, and they could not return them because they had already used them.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yeah, yeah.
Host:DaneHiggins:And it's one of those where in this case we had actually told them, Are you sure? Because for a fee, we will calculate your spokes. Yep. And then, you know, you don't have to worry about this. He's like, I know what I'm doing. And so he ordered the spokes, and unfortunately, they were the wrong. And I will tell you that that our guys who are master wheel builders have had that happen to them because it's not a simple thing, right? It's not. And the there's a lot of calculators online that they're not always correct, and it's very easy to get the wrong measurements for the hub, depending on you know, if you're using a stock configurator like DT, and maybe you picked the wrong hub. Maybe you picked the center lock and not the six bolt, or maybe you just picked the wrong year and they slightly changed it. So uh the ERDs, which is uh the rim, effective rim diameter, uh I believe is what it's called. Uh, somebody's gonna change me on that, but ERD tells the wheel builder what the size of the rim is. Right. And those are not always correct. In fact, our wheel builders don't trust ERDs anymore, they actually physically measure them themselves, and that is a little shop secret that they've had so many uh wrong spokes that they've learned that those calculators don't work. So there's a lot of little things that the bike shops do that you don't even know, you know, that save you time and money. But I, you know, if I if you want to build your own wheels, I'm down, you know. It is it is uh uh it's it like you said, it's a dark art, it drives me insane. I I'd much rather have our guys build them. They build such a good wheel.
Host:JoshAnderson:So that's awesome. Okay, uh I think the last question I have, and maybe maybe there's more, but what about bottom bracket?
Host:DaneHiggins:Okay, same thing. Uh lots of different standards. There's no standards to this stuff. So you do have threaded, and it used to be safe to just say it's threaded, but people don't realize there is a Italian thread, which is totally different, and those are not compatible. And then there's a new what's called T47 thread, which is different too. So you can have three, at least three different. There are some weird French ones that I'm not gonna bring up because there's nothing modern with that.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yeah.
Host:DaneHiggins:Um, but there's at least three different types of threads that a bottom bracket could be. Italian is pretty much mostly road bikes, so at least two. Um, and those are the easy ones. The hard ones are press fit, and that's where they just have a cavity, and they've uh I think the manufacturers just realized that one, if you just make a hole and you don't have to go machine anything, it's way cheaper. Way cheaper. Yeah. And uh there are some uh companies that make that hole very nice, and then there's some companies that don't necessarily make that hole very nice.
Host:JoshAnderson:See, you're making the hole nice now. You're back to that secret episode.
Host:DaneHiggins:All I'm saying is if if you want a nice hole, you need to spend a little bit more money. So true in so many different ways. So um so PressFit got a really bad name because it got adopted pretty quick because I think the manufacturers were like, Woohoo, we can save money. And um, so it but just I mean, like overnight every bike seemed to have them. Um one of the problems is is if the tolerance is not correct, you can have kind of an oval surface, right? And that will create opportunity for some of the bottom brackets to actually move, walk, or creak. And that was really, really common. And PressFit got a really bad name. The reason I say that is because we're a pivot dealer. And again, Brian, if you're listening, you'll like what I have to say this time. Uh but uh pivots QC and they're uh very tight about their quality control.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yeah, we we saw them in their factory doing that.
Host:DaneHiggins:So as a seller, I worked at a another dealer. I'm not gonna name the company because I sell the bikes now, but um I worked at a brand who did not have the best QC on their bottom brackets, and we had a constant creaking issue. Then when I opened another shop and became a pivot dealer, I would say that there was like one bike. I I I'm not exaggerating when I say there's one bike that the customer just stopped riding a pivot because of the creek. Of the creek, and it was one particular bike that was built in a way that you couldn't put in these uh thread-together ones. Yeah. And that bike is so gone and not on the on the board anymore. Yeah. Um in the time 12, I think we did some calculating, 12 years I've been selling pivots, we almost never, ever, ever, ever have creaky bottom brackets. Now we do there's two things that happen. We have a special process here that we found that helps them not creak.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yeah, you talked about it before, but it yeah, but if you haven't heard this episode, probably good to say it again.
Host:DaneHiggins:So we use a Teflon uh and that helps a lot. But also um I I kind of realize that some of the bikes that we sell stock, they come pre the bottom brackets are inserted by pivot. Um, and so I don't know if they have a special sauce or anything, but the amount of bikes we've built stock or um built from the ground up with pivot don't have that issue, it really comes down to those quality controls. And if that bottom bracket is not at the right tolerance, you're gonna have more issues.
Host:JoshAnderson:I hate to do this to you, man. Uh-huh. But we have to be like we have to have be uh honest with our listeners. Sure. Yeah. So Lacey's Vault that we bought from you two weeks ago, yeah, while you were out recovering. Yeah. When we put it up on the stand and Tyler did the fit.
Host:DaneHiggins:The creek. So that that one uh pivot put the bottom bracket in that one.
Host:JoshAnderson:So they took it out. Did they do the Teflon? Did the Teflon and it worked. And he said, um, your Ren said that he thinks they had spec that particular model. It was a lower, it was I think it's the lowest model of the vault that you can buy. Uh-huh. Has a screw together, but this it's it's like not a like a praxis. It's it's it, I think it was a praxis. Yeah. And he's like, he goes, Yeah, we're we're gonna talk to Pivot about specing this. This we've you know, this is not this is not a good part here.
Host:DaneHiggins:There there is that factor, but um I find it kind of cool that they put the Teflon on and it went away. So that was so far, no problem. Yeah, that was something that that I did many years ago, and I just kind of found it online as a hack and we started doing it, and I've had a couple mechanics that we've hired that have just been like, You're crazy, you know, and I'm like, uh, just see if it comes back. And now I actually ran an experiment with a friend of mine who bought a pivot, and we built it from the ground up, and I put in the recommended just you know, you use a grease and you put it in.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yeah.
Host:DaneHiggins:Creaked right away. Uh, and I and he's a friend, and I told him, and so he came back and I'm like, yeah, I'll pull it out and I'll you know, I'll put Teflon it in, put it in, and hasn't been back. And so I'm not gonna say that you'll never have a creak on a pivot. I'm not gonna say that you'll never have a creak if you t use Teflon, but press fits are much better, and they're really the bike can the bike can make or break a press fit for sure.
Host:JoshAnderson:Right on.
Host:DaneHiggins:Then you have uh so we talk about press fit, uh, which is usually the bearing uh that has a housing around it. Like a plastic housing around. Yeah, plastic for um for some of them, metal on others. Then there's some there's what's called BB30, there's BB right, there's if you get into the road bike world, it gets I I pull a lot of hair out when I'm dealing with road bikes because they're insane. Um Specialized has a lot of weird ones. Specialized had one where they recommended you glue them in, like JB weld them in. I'm not even kidding. And if there's anybody that works at a specialized shop that can back me up, just send us a message. But um they you would have to weld JB weld these in, and then if you took them out, you had JB weld them in again. There's other ones where they recommend using like a how the hell do you get it out if you JB welded? You hammer that sucker out, you know. And it JB welds kind of good, but it's not it's not permanent. It's not always permanent. Um I I think uh there's some where they tell you to use green Loctite, which is uh super tough Loctite. It's not. It's a um bearing retainer. There's a number. I don't know what the number is. Um but basically it's it green, red, blue. Is that the but I have I have bearing retainer that's um red? Yep. And then I have non-permanent red. There's a couple different Loctite makes a crap load of stuff.
Host:JoshAnderson:Yeah.
Host:DaneHiggins:In general, when a bike shop's talking red, they don't want the thing to come apart. Blue keeps it from rattling apart, and green usually fills gaps. Right on. And when you see green in action when it dries, it looks like a Jolly Rancher. Uh so it dries hard, like a hard candy. And so if there's little crevices or it's not going in all the way, or the bearing is kind of loose where it should be, the bearing retainer will kind of keep it in place and not let it move around. Fills up those gaps. Yeah, yeah. And so that's kind of one of the things that sometimes happens on some brands.
Host:JoshAnderson:Is there anything else on the bottom bracket has um so then you have the cranks. Yeah, okay.
Host:DaneHiggins:So remember we talked about the boost and non-boost and super boost? Well, the cranks can sometimes be uh variable depending on how the wide the back end is. Chain line. Yeah. And so your chain line can chain. Some companies you have to buy a crank to change the chain line, specialized. I'm sorry. Uh Shimano. Um some companies, so Shimano designed their cranks where if you want to change your chain line, you have to buy the crank. Other companies, the crank stays the same, but the chain ring offset changes.
Host:JoshAnderson:Okay. That's why you put the spacers on or whatever, right?
Host:DaneHiggins:No, um, it'll be like uh twist. No, the chain ring will have like a dishing.
Host:JoshAnderson:Oh, I got you, I gotcha.
Host:DaneHiggins:And so sometimes there's zero, sometimes they're three millimeter, sometimes they're six millimeter. If it's a off-brand, you know, not a mainstream, they may play with that a little bit or maybe split the difference or something like that to make their more universal where you use them. And then you can always space the bottom bracket back and forth on a lot of bikes. Okay, that's what I was thinking. Yeah. Um, old school, what they call jeep uh GXP uh bottom brackets, they would do what's called a capture, a bearing capture on the non-drive side. When you shove that thing in the bike and tighten down the non-drive side crank arm, it would actually pinch the bearing and that would hold it in place. And you could actually sometimes see a gap on the drive side where the crank wasn't all the way in. And it was designed so weird. Yeah, yeah. And uh and that GXP was actually not bad for threaded. What they started to realize with those press fits is that now if you have that gap, you can kind of walk that bearing, that that bottom bracket cup out, you know, and so then you had to have wavy roshers or or sometimes space them to keep that from happening.
Host:JoshAnderson:Hey, sorry about the background noise listeners. We've got a monsoon coming through, and uh I'll I'll do my best to get it out in the uh signal, and not sure I'll be able to, but uh sorry about that.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, it's although I'm loving it. I love the rain. I love the rain, I'm not gonna complain about the rain.
Host:JoshAnderson:So I have to go up and make sure you're gonna it's not a big deal.
Host:DaneHiggins:It's kind of in a place that doesn't mess with anything. I gotta go make sure it doesn't ruin the building.
Host:JoshAnderson:Do you know we've been on one question and we're almost done? Shit.
Host:DaneHiggins:That's a good question. I knew this was a good question. Yeah, this is a really complicated buying a frame and swapping parts is really, really hard. Even our mechanics have a hard time because there's all these variables and it's easy. So we didn't talk about disc brake adapters. No. So I forgot about that. So like rotor size, disc brake adapters. Um, there's some forks, so I sell a lot of forks. Yeah.
Host:JoshAnderson:Sometimes when I'm selling a fork, the brake posts are not let's say But that shouldn't okay, just just so our listeners understand, that shouldn't impact you if you're using the same fork and the same wheel.
Host:DaneHiggins:Yeah, but it may affect you on the back because some bikes may have a 160 post, and then you'll need an adapter to maybe go if you have 180. Or what can happen is the bike may be set up. I have a bike that I just did the other day, and I was like, holy crap, this bike is set up for 203 or 200 in the back. You can't go smaller than 200 in the back of the bike. Oh wow, that's crazy. And so the chances that somebody had a 180, they're gonna have to now get a rotor and an adapter.
Host:JoshAnderson:It was funny. Dane Dane uh helped me figure out a rear uh uh caliper adapter situation on my gorilla, and he came over and he looked at it, and I had like two adapters. Like clues together to make it work. He's like, Jesus Christ, Josh, this is not right. Let me let me get you the $7 adapter that we'll fix this or $17 adapter, whatever it was.
Host:DaneHiggins:It's funny that Gorilla uses an old standard, and I have a box of those things because all the new ones are post-to-post. And then that one was IS to post. And then IS to post in the front back in the day was not the same width as IS post to the rear. So you couldn't use the same adapter. Now post to post, you can kind of interchange.
Host:JoshAnderson:Dude, if you're not a bike nerd, we have lost half our audience.
Host:DaneHiggins:I'm sorry to any non-bike nerds out there. It's crazy. So uh I'm trying to think if there's anything else that you have to factor in.
Host:JoshAnderson:So you gotta make sure you're doing do we cover the chain line enough?
Host:DaneHiggins:Chain line is yeah, chain line may change if the rear spacing changed. Um if the rear spacing changed, you probably didn't change, you're probably okay. Okay. But you probably will need a different bottom bracket. So your old bike may be threaded and your new one may be press fit. But but cranks pretty much standard. One thing about the bottom bracket is you have to match the bottom bracket to the crank. To the spindle width, right? And then you have to match the bottom bracket also to the frame. So so it's not like you can say I just I need a dub bottom bracket for my pivot. I have to have two numbers. I have to have that dub, which will tell me the diameter, yeah. And then I have to have the frame so I know the the shell size. And so you have to get those two things.
Host:JoshAnderson:So I'm taking away that like the only thing that's standard is the water bottle cage.
Host:DaneHiggins:Oh God, no. Uh so you're shitting me. No, it's for the most part the spacing on those is the same, but like we've definitely sold a new bike where somebody's like, I'm gonna use my old water bottle cage, you know, for whatever reason. They don't want to spend 10 bucks and didn't have the right fitment or whatever. No, like the frame may be smaller, and now they can't get the bottle out, and they have to get what's called a side loader, which comes in from the sides. So even then it doesn't transfer, so depending on the bike. Um you know, the bike shop, the hardest thing that we have to deal with is ever-changing standards, and they never are the same. Uh, we just sold this um Argonne 18 gravel bike. It's sitting over in the Fit Center and it's gonna get fit and then we're gonna finish the build. And it came in with the new SRAM uh gravel explorer group, and it uh that group is now built like the Shram Transmission, so it hugs the frame.
Host:JoshAnderson:Right.
Host:DaneHiggins:Uh direct mount? Yeah, direct mount to the axle. And I was like, wow, you know, because road bikes have not embraced some of this stuff as fully as the mountain bikes did. And so that thing is now, and it's really cool. If I wanted to throw on like a T-type XO rear derailer and make that a monster gravel, I can do it, you know, and that's so there's some standards that are showing up that are we really want to stay, you know. But now they got what a 32-inch wheels that they're trying to push on us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like now I gotta think about how many tires am I gonna have to stock tires and rims and different forks, probably forks, like oh my god, it's just killing me. Uh, there's been a little bit of movement in the road bikes, so we were talking about um uh standards on forks. So tapered is a standard that we've kind of embraced in mountain. On road, kind of a standard, but not really because you have tapered, but you have different diameters of taper depending on where the bike was built, and so you may have a one and one eighth uh to one and a half, but you may have a one and one-eighth to one and a quarter, and so they get kind of weird. Oh, Jesus. And so when we were deep diving on the fork you needed, that's one of the things that kept coming up is what's going on with that fork? Is it the right diameter?
Host:JoshAnderson:We'll say that one because I I've that was one of my questions, but that'll be another deep dive. Yeah Dane, can I ask you one final question? Sure. Okay. Um I think this might have been Is it about penetration? It's not, but it's in that vein. Okay, all right. Get it? Vein? Yeah. Um this is a very serious question. I've been wondering this. Do guys that prefer small grips also have small wieners?
Host:DaneHiggins:I would say there's no correlation to that. But something small feels good in your hand. So being as somebody who likes big grips, there could be. I don't know. I don't know.
Host:JoshAnderson:I don't know. If you like small grips, just let us know. Yeah. And maybe that's why.
Host:DaneHiggins:Uh I do have short fingers, but I like big grips. That's weird. Isn't that weird?
Host:JoshAnderson:So super weird. Appreciate you guys. Thanks, Dean.
